With just 48 days to go the General Election the Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has visited the marginal Hammersmith constituency to promote Labour’s message.
There has also been a glossy brochure sent to every household attacking the Government’s “austerity cuts” and praising Labour policy. It offered the confused messages that Government’s cuts had caused devastation – and that the Labour Council had managed to absorb without reducing services.
None of that is surprising given that the closely fought election is so close.
What is a scandal is that rather than paying for their own propaganda the Labour Party are using Council Taxpayers money to do so. Council resources are funding Labour’s campaign. This is in flagrant regard of the Local Authority Publicity Code which prohibits this abuse.
The District Auditor Andrew Sayers tells me that he is reviewing “the processes that the Council has in place for adhering to the Local Authority Publicity Code”. But Labour cynically calculate that any enforcement will take place after Polling Day.
Needless to say the Labour propaganda being sent out by the Council – and trumpted by Miss Cooper – is not only partisan but dishonest.
For instance it claims “Across London, police numbers have fallen by 2,000 since 2010”.The number of police officers is 36,100. In 2010 it was 35,882. Labour produced their figures by excluding Special Constables. But even though they are unpaid Special Constables are real police officers. They have the power to arrest people. They wear a uniform. They are out on patrol on Saturday nights maintaining order and keeping us safe.
Why Special Constables were excluded from Labour’s figures? Also why was it not made clear in the Council leaflet that the figure cited excluded Special Constables.
Without irony the glossy council magazine boasted of having scrapped spending money on glossy council magazines.
Labour’s attempt to rig this election by using Council Taxpayers money to boost their campaign is a complete disgrace.
Hammersmith and Fulham Forum 
Typical of Labour and their mendacious approach to government. Here is what the first 100 days of a new Labour govt. would look like ………….
Desperate times mean the usual desperate measures ie screw the council tax payer, after all we know better how to waste their money than they do.
I was shocked to receive this brochure and had to check that it had in fact come from the council and not from the Labour Party. It is depressing that, nationally as well as locally, Labour are unable to campaign on either their record or their prospectus for government, but instead can only produce a toxic mixture of scaremongering and sanctimonious hypocrisy. Using my taxes to produce this propaganda is unacceptable.
Didn’t you, Harry, change the Council’s colour scheme to the Tory blue and green? Didn’t you send out free newspapers repeatedly, to every house, parading your agenda? Didn’t you use taxpayers’ money to put banners on lampposts proclaiming “the low tax borough” in the run up to elections? Short memory, Phibbs, short memory.
On receiving this glossy magazine I also thought that this had come from the Labour Party rather than LBHF Council. The current administration spend an awful lot of time telling us what a great job they think they are doing. I would suggest they leave comments on performance to the residents they serve.